


Sense of Control

by cottonwoolsocks



Series: Whumptober 2019 [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Asphyxiation, Background Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Background Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Background Morality | Patton Sanders, Background Sleep | Remy Sanders, Collapsing, Delirium, Fainting, Gen, Human Sides (Sanders Sides), Hurt No Comfort, Isolation, Logic | Logan Sanders Needs a Hug, Logic | Logan Sanders-centric, Nausea, Panic Attacks, Poisoning, Shaky Hands, Unconsciousness, Vomiting, Whump, Whumptober 2019, laced drink, scraped knees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 14:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20893763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottonwoolsocks/pseuds/cottonwoolsocks
Summary: Logan's drink gets spiked at a party, and the others are nowhere to be found.





	Sense of Control

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober 2019.  
Prompts:  
1\. Shaky hands  
3\. Delirium  
7\. Isolation  
10\. Unconscious  
19\. Asphyxiation  
21\. Laced drink
> 
> Enjoy this whumpy boy. Someone help him.

Delirium (n)  
“an acutely disturbed state of mind characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence, occurring in intoxication, fever, and other disorders.”

Logan took another sip of the sparkling wine in his hand, eyes scanning the room and watching as the loud group of drunken freshmen he wasn't sure even attended his college stumbled from the room in a swathing mass of giggles. Patton had recommended this particular beverage, and although Logan had never really been one to drink unless he was having a particularly rough night with one of his assignments or projects, Patton had insisted it had a low alcohol content, and Logan had agreed. Only, Patton had disappeared along with Roman not long after they'd arrived, and even Virgil had spotted his friends Elliott and Kai and slunk off somewhere.

His Lonely Corner drinking buddy whom he had been standing silently with up until now suddenly decided they had better places to be, setting their glass down and heading back into the fray without so much as a second glance. Shame. Logan felt like they'd bonded in their mutual lonely drinking despite not having spoken a word, but apparently that wasn't the case.

Logan was drinking alone at a college party. Figures.

There was some loud, modern dance music blaring from the next room that made Logan’s head throb, and bright lights glared through the doorway. Logan was glad he had chosen the conservatory to hide in, as despite the busy couple in the corner and the spilled drinks by the door to the garden, this room was tame compared to the rest of the house.

And although it was Remy who had organised this party, despite it being someone Logan knew, he was still seriously questioning why he'd even come. He had, regrettably, assumed he and Virgil would stay together for the duration of the event as neither were particularly fond of parties, but even Virgil had found some friends. The same could not be said of Logan—all his friends had other, more party-appropriate company.

He sighed gently. Perhaps it would just be best for him to go home and try and finish some of the assignments he was neglecting through being here—it was nearly eleven thirty, after all—but the others would surely be disappointed if he left. Even though none of them were with him. Even though they were all happier elsewhere; not that he blamed them.

Clearly, the best thing to do would be to go and find one of the others, rather than wallowing in his own self pity when the others would (probably) love to talk to him.

Deciding this was indeed the most logical course of action he moved to place down his glass on the table, but started as he noticed that his hands had begun to shake.

He frowned. Why were his hands shaking? He'd only had one drink, and it had a low alcohol content, so he wasn't intoxicated. Sure, he was tired, but not enough so as to become jittery, and while he may be a little trepidatious about heading back inside to the party to find one of his friends he rarely got shaky with nerves, and now was certainly not such an occasion.

He clasped his hands together in an attempt to stablilise the tremoring, but they only seemed to shake harder in response, and now his mind was reeling.

He wasn't intoxicated, wasn't tired, wasn't hungry or dehydrated—perhaps it was a panic attack? Virgil said he got them randomly at times, with no prior warning, but Logan didn't feel any of the other symptoms—no shortness of breath, sense of impending doom, or chest pains. Perhaps he had become ill?

The corners of his vision began to gloss over and nausea started to settle in his stomach like the sticky film that begins to form over the top of old milk. He glanced around the room, suddenly apprehensive and looking for another human being to share his moment of confusion with, in the same way strangers make eye contact when something out of the ordinary happens or there's a particularly bumpy plane landing—but it was empty. Even the couple in the corner that had seemed far too preoccupied to consider moving had apparently decided they had to hurry somewhere else.

Perhaps he'd been poisoned?

It did add up—shaky hands, nausea, his mind slowly fogging over along with his vision, and he had just finished a drink.

But he'd kept an eye on it the whole time, hadn't he? And he'd watched the drink being poured from the bottle, he'd watched for that _ specifically _ , and it had all been fine, and he hadn't put down his drink once since then, and somebody would have had to drug it but there was nobody there, nobody _ had _been there, nobody except—

The strange person who'd been standing next to him for the last twenty minutes or so, and _ just so happened _to have disappeared right when he started to feel abnormal.

How had he not noticed?

He took off his glasses, rubbing at the lenses with the hem of his shirt in an attempt to clear away the fog gathering over them. His fingers trembled and the glasses fell to the floor with a distant thud, and Logan wondered fleetingly when the music had been turned down.

His eyes travelled down to his feet, down to where the glasses supposedly were, although his vision seemed to be fading in and out along with the pulsating beat of the music that seemed to course through the very body of the building. He squinted. Nothing to see.

A sudden wave of dizziness overcame him and he tried to reach out and steady himself on the table, but the next thing he knew his cheek was pressed against the wooden floorboards and his fist was weakly grasping for support on the ground that had been air only a moment beforehand.

The world was tilting this way and that like a ship on a choppy ocean, and Logan’s head was in spirals as he tried to push himself upright again, his shoulder sore from where he must have been lying on it awkwardly, stiff almost like he'd been there for more than just a moment. Which he hadn't, of course. Because he'd remember. He could always remember.

Something pressed uncomfortably into the palm of his hand as he managed to move into what he hoped was a sitting position, although it was near impossible to tell with the way the world seemed to rotate around him, picking up the offending object only to realise they were his glasses.

Three indeterminate attempts later his glasses were back on his face, although by this point he was now sure it wasn't fogged over glasses that had caused his wavering vision.

He needed to find one of the others.

Or call an ambulance. That— that probably made the most logical sense.

He patted his pocket, but there was no comforting hollow sound as there would normally be when his knuckles hit the hard backing of his phone.

He patted another pocket.

Nope, nope, and nope.

He took a deep breath, trying not to gag as it provoked the nausea he'd just about forgotten about under the dizziness and falling over to almost knock him back to his knees as he pulled himself upright by the corner of the table.

Blearily, he scanned the room, trying to formulate a plan of action which was proving considerably difficult considering _he_ _couldn't think_.

Garden door. No point going out there.

Hallway door. Yes, that was what he wanted.

He took a step forward, but the moment the support of the table was gone from under his fingertips his knees crumpled like they'd never been there in the first place as the ground rushed to meet him.

His head might have knocked against the ground and there was the taste of something coppery in his mouth, but Logan was beginning to realise that the most comfortable option seemed to be to just fall asleep, mayhaps that be on the floor right here.

_ No! _ screamed the louder voice in his head, the one that guided him most every day. _ Going to sleep whilst under the influence of an unknown drug can be dangerous. Find the others. _

Find the others. Logan nodded, reaching his hand over to his opposite wrist to absently readjust his watch—a nervous habit, borne from always having a strict timetable and a wish for punctuality.

Nothing. Just the odd smoothness of a watchless wrist, a naked wrist missing the usual accessory he was never seen without.

If Logan had been feeling sick before, he was now at least 87% sure he was going to throw up.

Somehow, _ somehow _ he managed to pull himself upright—he blinked, and he was at the doorway to the main house, the sound of thumping bass hammering through his body and reverberating in his rib cage. He shifted uncomfortably, shaking his head to try and get rid of the noise which only seemed to be growing louder. The empty space on his wrist was taunting him, heart beating faster at the lack of normality.

He was going to throw up.

Hardly able to follow his own thought patterns, Logan turned 180 degrees and began stumbling towards the garden.

Reaching the door he staggered through, almost slipping on the drink spilled on the floor and tumbling forwards onto the tiled path.

A dull pain dragged along the skin of his forearms and knees where he'd hit the ground, but it was a disconnected sort of pain: muffled, almost; he scrambled upright and almost fell over again as the world tilted to one side.

Head reeling as his eyes grazed the garden, he realised there was not another soul outside, but he didn't have time to think about the significance of that as his foot caught on something that hadn't been there before and he tumbled forward, instinctively grabbing the bush beside him to try and break the fall.

He managed to stay upright, this time, but he could feel a clammy coldness along his spine telling him he was going to pass out any moment, so it was with great desperation that he collapsed to the ground, shielded by the bush in what he hoped was a secluded area of the garden, where he could sit with his back pressed against the garden wall away from the noise and clamour of inside.

He choked, scrambling sideways in the nick of time as nausea got the better of him and he was heaving into the grass, gasping between retches in an attempt to bring some oxygen into his system and calm himself down.

His head was spinning, spinning, spinning and it was just him alone, in an empty world that was cold and damp and spinning and blind. There was nothing to hear but the insistent ringing in his ears, and the thoughts in his head were severed from him, locked away in a chest he couldn't open and preventing him from helping himself.

The vomiting stopped and he managed to pull himself away from the mess, collapsing against the wall and fighting to heave in a breath, but there was something tied around his chest or his lungs had shrunk and he couldn't seem to draw in enough air to be satisfied.

He was suddenly aware of how very alone he was, _ wherever _he was, and how easy of a target that made him, pulling his knees up as close to his chest as he could and heaving off his tie as he tried to bring back a sense of control.

He couldn't think, _ he couldn't think _ , how was he supposed to do anything if he couldn't think? That was what he was good at, that's how he coped with situations, that's what everyone relied on him for, his ability to look at situations rationally and figure out a logical solution without getting worked up with things as trivial as _ emotions. _He reached for his watch, only to be painfully reminded of the reliance he didn't realise he'd developed for the item.

He had lost control. He had lost control. He was going to die here, he was going to die alone in whatever place this was, he was going to suffocate and die because there must be something smothering him, _ must _be something inhibiting his breathing because there was no way this was his fault, no way this was something he could control, he was always in control, he was always in control, he was always—

A cold shiver went through his body and it was like all the energy he had was suddenly drained away, his head lolling forwards and his glasses jabbing uncomfortably into the side of his face, although he couldn't draw the strength to move them.

Still couldn't breathe.

There was a wheezing sound coming from somewhere, but Logan’s head wouldn't cooperate when he told it to move, ears still filled with cotton wool and his lungs only half their usual size.

His head was getting lighter and lighter, so light Logan wondered if it was still attached to his body, eyes throbbing and fizzing, the static in his ears getting louder and louder, more insistent, almost like it was trying to communicate, trying to warn him.

He couldn't pass out he couldn't lose control not here not now no no no not alone not here not without— not without— not without...

**Author's Note:**

> [say hi to me on tumblr](https://cottonwoolsocks.tumblr.com/)


End file.
